Parenting - why education should not be a one-way street

Children can be annoying. But children can also do so much more. For example, teach her parents something.

In general, it is the adults who raise children. In day care, they teach them to follow the rules and to develop an understanding of the needs of others. At school they should learn for life. And at home, the parents educate the rest depending on their priorities: accountability, tolerance, assertiveness. But do children actually educate their parents? Often, answers to this question only seem to give answers which diffuse to a feeling. In the sense of: "Before my children I did not know that I can feel so strong." You rarely or never hear things like: "Before I had children I did not dare to climb mountains." Or "Since then There are little things, I finally take books in my hand - before I was reading lazy. "

Why do we think that children are not a role model for adults?

Children seem to be able to make us indifferent better people, but not for us to be a role model or even to educate ourselves in very concrete things. Everything educational seems to radiate from the big to the small. Alone to consolation. At the same time, the fact that children are physically smaller and younger than us says nothing about the size of their wishes, their courage or their fears. And certainly nothing about what we can learn from them.

For example, my eight-year-old daughter is one of the bravest people I know. She jumps from the 3-meter tower, can go skiing and practically climbs every tree. She tells me that I should better look away now because I'm otherwise too worried. If she sustains an injury, she is usually the quieter of us both. It takes exactly one heartbeat to find out what others are feeling. If someone needs help or is being treated unfairly in their presence, she gets involved, offers her support and can not be dissuaded by any resistance.

When did my girl get so strong?

I would like to be as strong as my children

My six-year-old daughter has been a committed vegetarian for almost a year - the only one in the family. Some adults, seemingly challenged by its consequences, have tried, with more or less malicious references to animal components in sweets, to convince them to buckle. Nothing there! Instead, he only eats gelatin-free gummy bears today. And it took exactly one week to wear a skirt at school for the first time. I brought him and had quite a snarl. When a classmate started to laugh at him, my boy told him that he would think it over in his place, because if the other one wanted to play with him someday, that would not work for exactly that reason. Laughing is not and people who laugh at others, not synonymous. After that, there was silence. When did my little boy get so confident?

Education is relationship - and is based on reciprocity

However, no matter when and how it happened, one thing is certain: in our case, education is based on reciprocity, precisely because education is a relationship, as the family therapist Jesper Juul and others have stated. And the relationship between parents and children can be a lot, but it certainly should not be based on one-sidedness.
That's why, once I grow up, I want to become like my children. As generous, compassionate, funny and self-determined as my son. So ingenious, funny, courageous and
sensitive as my daughter. But that can take a while.

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